When you’re attending a holiday cocktail hour at the bar that is normally made to recall the hotel from The Shining but they’ve decked it out for the holidays and someone is wearing the perfect sweater.

Went downtown to catch Cincinnati’s celebration of Over-the-Rhine’s brewing heritage, bock beer, and the coming of Spring. Also goats. Realized I need to get quicker on my feet when it comes to parade photography: Lots more Bockfest photos, many blurry.

One of my favorite brewers is local and finding great success: MadTree Brewing. With attention comes challenge, so they’re switching their lineup a little and Gnarly Brown Ale will be going away, replaced by something less gnarled but equally solid I would fathom. Related: I almost always have their Pyschopathy IPA stocked in my fridge. So good.

As part of their weekly tasting, The Party Source brought in an expert from PDR to hand roll cigars. It was fascinating to watch his deft movement, shaping and forming the tobacco leaf around the filler. Picked up some Dad beer afterward, because plaid makes everything taste better.

Mom hosted a beer tasting, and though we didn’t exactly know what we were doing (What types of beer should folks bring? Should we take notes or rate them somehow?), we still managed to have a darn good time. (The strawberry fruit ale got the most votes.)

Worth the trip: The tap room at Mad Tree Brewing. Went last night for the release of their Thundersnow beer and enjoyed samples from their soon to open kitchen. The seasonal beer is rich—they say with ginger, nutmeg, vanilla and hints of cinnamon. Beer recipes are like horoscopes with me… You could say there are […]

Intense competition went down at Rhinegeist as Anne organized a bunch of friends to get together because we don’t get to hang enough anymore. The kids ran around or made Minecraft paper models in the corner, while the adults bent elbows and caught up.